Remembering recreation in the early twentieth century, a management training course, and mill work in South America

Pharis touches on a number of subjects. He recalls an era toward the beginning of the twentieth century when there was little entertainment, and people in his area spent their free time drinking water and talking. He remembers his work life as well, in particular workshops held by a group called the Carolina Council that taught him management skills. The course served him when he took over the weaving room of plant in South America that until his arrival, had run on a punitive "vigilante system."

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with James Pharis, July 24, 1977. Interview H-0038. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

CLIFF KUHN:

Did people from different departments get to know people from other
departments.

MRS. PHARIS:

Oh yes.

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh they were closer then than they are now.

CLIFF KUHN:

How's that?

JAMES PHARIS:

Because there wasn't nothing for people to do but congregate
with each other. I think that was one of the greatest
reasons—more socializing then than there is now-because there
wasn't nothing else to do. We didn't even have
electric lights in our house for a good many years…

MRS. PHARIS:

We married in nineteen and eleven.

JAMES PHARIS:

Yeah, I believe nineteen and eleven.

CLIFF KUHN:

That would make sense because it's 1977 now. So people
congregated around more, did more things with each other in those
days?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, there was quite a difference then. The only entertainment people had
up there in the summer time is a mineral spring about a mile from town.
The road would get to be thick with people going to the mineral spring,
trying to spend a bigger part of their Sunday's, with nothing
to do but just drink water and talk. That's all.

CLIFF KUHN:

You continued to work at Spray? For how long?

JAMES PHARIS:

Until nineteen and thirty-three.

CLIFF KUHN:

How did you become a loom fixer?

JAMES PHARIS:

They put me first, promoted me first from weaving to what they call a
smash hand. And then, with an opportunity to learn to fix looms. And in
all the spare time I had on the smashing job, I'd be with
some fixer learning to fix looms. Finally, I got a section of my own and
I kept it for a good many years.

CLIFF KUHN:

Did you like doing that kind of work—loom fixing?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, I didn't particularly like loom fixing. I liked it for the
first few years but then it got boring to me some way or another and I
took all the training that I could in supervising. At that time, they
had what they called Carolina Council which was composed of all
supervisors from management down to prospect supervisors. If anybody was
a prospect supervisor, they'd invite them to join the
Council. Well, they invited me to join the Council and I joined and they
give us, paid for, several courses in supervising and I taken them
all.

CLIFF KUHN:

When was that—in the twenties?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yeah.

CLIFF KUHN:

What did this Carolina Council do?

JAMES PHARIS:

They'd have a meeting once a month and talk over business of
the plant which all of it was interesting—what each plant was
doing and how they were doing and so forth. That was about…
and they'd have picnics in the summer and banquets at
Christmas time.

CLIFF KUHN:

Was that all over the state?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, that was just in Spray. Just for Marshall Field mills and Spray.

CLIFF KUHN:

How many people were in the Carolina Council?

JAMES PHARIS:

I suppose it was about 200.

CLIFF KUHN:

And it ranged all the way from the owners down to…

JAMES PHARIS:

All the way from the top to the bottom.

CLIFF KUHN:

What kind of courses did you take?

JAMES PHARIS:

I taken one course in handling men, handling personnel.

CLIFF KUHN:

What kind of things would they teach in that course?

JAMES PHARIS:

Well, they teach you how to get along with people and how to make a
success as a supervisor. And, how to handle people as a supervisor. That
done me more good in later years than anything I ever taken in my
life.

CLIFF KUHN:

How's that?

JAMES PHARIS:

Well, in learning me how to study people and how to treat them. I
remember it even helped me up until the last days. I still remember
things I learned in there in getting along with people and how to treat
people, to be fair and square, firm. I know it done me more good in
South America than anything I ever taken when I went over there they a
system that the supervisor—in fact
[Laughter]
the supervisor, he was just in there. The administrator of the
plant was what you called ‘boss.’
And he was a Puerto Rican. He had what you call a vigilante
system, in the plant. You see, he couldn't be there all the
time. In the vigilante system, somebody he'd
pick—which was a secret to the rest of them, they
didn't know that they was doing this—and every
little thing that they'd see the employees doing, why
they'd go and report it to the administrator of the plant.
They could treat them like dogs over there and get by with it.
Then he'd get them in and give them a working over. I had a
contract when I went over there that nobody else was to have anything to
do with the weaving. You see, they never had done nothing over there.
Efficiency had been in the fifties and sixties. They had two kind of
looms over there: the Draper and the Crompton-Knowles. They had never
done never done anything. Efficiency had never been over fifty on the
and in the sixties on the drapers.
Well, when I went there I had a contract that nobody was to have anything
to do with that weaving except me. I had full charge of it. Well, I
didn't do anything. I just checked for about two or three
weeks to find out which was the best way to handle those people. After
about three weeks, I told the administrator of the plant, I asked him if
he'd ever read my contract. He said, "Yes."
I says Monday, I'm taking charge and I don't want
you to have a thing in the world to do with anything, anybody in that
weave room. If one of those employees in the weave room come to you for
anything, I want you to send them to me." And he said,
"Mr. Pharis, how are you going to run this place?" I
said, "Well the first thing, I'm going to try to
teach these people everything I know and I'm going to be as
good to them as I possibly can to get them to do the work." And
I says, "I'm doing away with
the vigilante system." I says, "What I
don't see myself, I don't want to know anything
about without somebody's trying to destroy something or
property." He said, "Why Mr. Pharis, you'll
never run this job over here like that. You might run one in the United
States like that but not here. You've got to treat these
people like dogs over here. You've got to keep them under
feet, under foot." He says, "You've got to
keep them under foot all the time because if they ever one time get the
upper hand, you've lost control. You've got to
keep them down there and keep grinding on them to keep them down
there." I says, "I won't run it that way.
If I don't run it my way, if that ain't
satisfactory, you give me a thirty days notice and I'll be
ready to go. But, I'm running it my way." He says,
"Well, I'll tell you you'll never get by
with it."
That was long about August, about the first of August. Things were coming
together better. I explained it. I had an interpreter who stayed with me
all the time and I explained it. I'd get the groups together
and talk with them with my interpreter and tell them what all I was
doing by doing away with the vigilante system. That just tickled them to
death. The people got to working with me over there and I've
never seen anybody work with anybody better than they worked with me.
They'd do anything in the world I asked them to do without
any fuss at all. I remember one time we started a third shift over
there. You know there was a little trouble in them days getting people
to go from another shift to first shift. We weren't planning
on hiring anybody. We were just planning on taking employees. (We had
too many anyway.) And start a third shift.
Well, I was coming to worry about what was going to happen—if
I was going to get into trouble—when I tried to get somebody
to go to the third shift. Well I got them all
together and had a talk with them, explained it to them. I asked for
volunteers and one of the leaders of groups over there said,
"Mr. Pharis, you don't have to ask for volunteers.
You say who you want to go on the third shift and they'll go
on the third shift." So I started the third shift without any
trouble at all. That's just the way they worked with me the
whole time. The efficiency went from the fifties and sixties and I
worked with them people like that and get them to work with you and the
efficiency advanced from fifties and sixties into the nineties. It was
ninety-eight when I left over there on the Draper and the
Crompton-Knowles looms was ninety-two. Now that was the difference in
working somebody and having somebody work with you.